Internet cut during protests in India's violence-hit Manipur state

By Tora Agarwala

Authorities in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur suspended internet and mobile services and imposed an indefinite curfew on Saturday in areas where protesters were besieging politicians' homes over deadly inter-ethnic violence.

In the latest deaths, security forces found three bodies believed to be members of the majority Meitei community in a river on Friday. Meitei representatives said they were from a family of six captured by men from the Kuki ethnic group.

At least 250 people have died and 60,000 been uprooted in Manipur since May last year in inter-communal clashes over government grants and quotas in jobs and education.

A senior state police official told Reuters that large numbers of protesters had gathered and demanded to meet lawmakers in the state capital Imphal on Saturday.

"When their demands were ignored, they stormed residences, set fire to vehicles, and vandalised properties," he told Reuters under condition of anonymity.

Mobs besieged the homes of at least nine lawmakers, according to security officials and the politicians.

Four residences were vandalised.

"My house is currently under attack," BJP lawmaker L Sushindro Meitei told Reuters by phone from another location, saying he had information a crowd had surrounded his home.

"There has been some damage to my house, glasses (windowpanes) broken, but the security forces were able to disperse the mobs before they could enter," he said.

The six family members were reported missing in the aftermath of violence on Monday when 10 armed Kuki men died in a gunfight with security forces.

Last week, a 31-year-old woman of the Hmar group within the Kuki tribal community was burned alive in the state's Jiribam district. Kuki groups blamed Meitei militants.

The government has sent extra security forces and promised firm action against violent members of both communities in the state of 3.2 million people.

Manipur has become divided into two ethnic enclaves: a valley controlled by the Meiteis and hills dominated by the Kukis. The areas are separated by a stretch of no-man's land monitored by federal paramilitary forces.